Guitar Violence in Hollywood
Mogwai at The Knitting Factory, September 21
The White Stripes with Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the Greek Theatre, September 22

1. All of Mogwai's songs sound the same: chiming arpeggios slowly building in intensity until all three guitarists start hammering away at the strings, creating a wall of grinding, high-viscosity noise. They're fucking great at what they do, so we'll forgive the rut they seem to be stuck in. And, as far as I'm concerned, their existence would be worthwhile if only for perennial show-closer, the half-hour-long "My Father, My King," a Mogwaied-up version of an ancient Jewish hymn. It's obvious that this is a sacred song, because it achieves the epic, mystic grandeur that the rest of Mogwai's ouevre reaches for but can't quite grasp. There's something in the chords themselves that creates a receptive, trance-like state in the listener. Glorious.

2. The open-air Greek Theatre is totally not the right venue for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs--they're one of those bands that demand to be seen in a tiny club--but they gave it their best shot anyway. Karen O prowled out on stage on all fours, wearing a leopard-print thing that turned her into Sheena the Punk Rocker Queen of the Jungle. She didn't seem to know what to do with a stage that big, so she resorted to a lot of Jagger-style prancing. And though her screams had a tendency to get swallowed up in the night air, she offered enough evidence to support her current Rock Star of the Moment status.

3. At least until Jack and Meg White took the stage, and schooled everybody in Rock Stardom 101. The key, as the Beatles figured out long ago, is matching costumes; but once you've got that down, you still have to play. And The White Stripes can fucking play. They barely took a breath in the first twenty minutes of the show, Jack starting one song just as the last one was ending, sometimes not even bothering to finish a song--just doing a verse, then assaulting his guitar until it gave him the chord change he wanted, and launching right into something else. It was a full-scale attack on the guitar, the blues and the audience the likes of which I've never seen before. And all of you still rolling your eyes and making snarky little comments over Meg's supposed lack of drumming ability, you can shut up now: she held her own through all of Jack's swerves and u-turns. She even got her own spotlight, singing her Elephant showcase "In the Cold, Cold Night" to an adoring reaction. Jack works his ass off to be the rock god he is, but Meg barely has to lift a finger. (Two random observations: A) Jack Black was at the show, and I have to think that the presence of Jacks Black and White in the same place has some cosmic significance. B) Across the aisle from me were three kids, not over ten years old, wearing coordinated red-and-white outfits, who screamed and leaped around like monkeys on crack for every song. Seeing these kids jump up and down and pump their fists for Son House's "Death Letter" gave me great hope for the future.)

Just watched the first four hours of 24 Season Two on DVD. A few thoughts:

1. Jack Bauer has got to be the biggest badass in a TV show ever. I like that he's nominally the "hero" of the series, but he's a lethally unhinged, near-psychopathic bastard who will fuck over and/or shoot anyone in his quest to keep his moronic daughter out of harm's way. And unlike similar characters in TV or movies, Jack has absolutely no qualms about killing anyone. He never suffers the trademark Moment of Doubt. And while the series goes out of its way to assure the audience that everyone Jack shoots is a Really Bad Guy (the federal witness he shockingly murders in the first episode is a child pornographer, etc.), Jack himself is totally remorseless. And speaking of the near-retarded Kim Bauer...

2. Is Kim the dumbest person alive? That's a rhetorical question. Of course she is. My favorite Kim moment so far is when she, while on the run with an annoyingly cute child from the kid's abusive dad (whose listing in the credits reads "featuring Stereotypical Hollywood Asshole as Himself"), gets stuck in traffic and ACTUALLY SAYS "I'm going to drive down this alley." You don't have to be a TV-show staff writer to figure out what happens next. I have to think the writers mean for the Kim segments to play as comedy, because she's just too stupid to take seriously. When she finally escapes Hollywood Asshole and gets on a bus to take the Annoying Kid to CTU, she says something like "I'll never let him hurt you again," and I halfway expected Hollywood Asshole to pop up in the bus window, like the gremlin on the plane in that Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner.

3. There is absolutely no comedy in 24. None. Darlene from Roseanne pops up as a computer programmer in what seems to be an attempt to mimic ubergeek Marshall from Alias, but she soon ends up unconscious and dying, trapped under a girder after the militia guys blow up CTU. Come on! Marshall got to go on a mission with Sydney and speak the Ewok language! Don't let Darlene die!

4. And what's up with the WASP family whose youngest daughter (actress Laura Harris, one of an astounding number of very attractive, incredibly similar-looking blonde women on the show) is about to marry a Middle Eastern man? The bride's sister thinks he's a terrorist, and the show invites us to share her concerns by playing ominous music whenever he's around, and putting him and the older sister in situations where it seems like he's about to reveal himself as Ultimate Evil or something, only to turn the tables and show us he's really just a nice guy (i.e. he drives Older Sister out to show her a "surprise," and she of course thinks he's going to kill her, so she screams at him to stop the car and let her out--which he does, right in front of the new house he bought for his soon-to-be wife, which was the surprise he wanted to show her, etc. etc.). But of course we know he has to be involved with the terrorists somehow, if only tangentially, because why else are we wasting time with these people? To make us feel guilty for stereotyping all Arabic men?

5. So far the plot is this elaborate Rube Goldberg contraption that is only being held together by Kiefer Sutherland's performance as Bauer, which is leagues ahead of everyone else on the show. (Dennis Haysbert isn't bad as President David Palmer, but they need to find him something to do besides sit around and slowly realize that all his advisors are lying to him, which is what he spent all of last season doing, as well. And now that Xander Berkeley's character has contracted lethal radiation poisoning, he's become much more interesting.) I hope for the next season they make the show completely ludicrous, like bring back Berkeley (if he dies) as a Hardass Zombie Boss ("I don't have to answer to you, Almeida! Now let me eat your brain!"). Or do something crazy like kill Jack in the third episode. Or better yet, Kim. "I'm going to drive down this alley." Seriously.

Your soul is worth £11066. For your peace of mind, 74% of people have a purer soul than you.

We saw houses falling from the sky
Where the mountains lean down to the sand
We saw blackbirds circling 'round an old castle keep
And I stood on the cliff and held your hand

We walked trouble's brooding windswept hills
And we loved and we laughed the pain away
At the end of the journey, when our last song is sung
Will you meet me in Heaven someday

Can't be sure of how it's going to be
When we walk into the light across the bar
But I'll know you and you'll know me
Out there beyond the stars

We've seen the secret things revealed by God
And we heard what the angels had to say
Should you go first, or if you follow me
Will you meet me in Heaven someday

Living in a mansion on the streets of gold
At the corner of Grace and Rapture Way
In sweet ecstasy while the ages roll
Will you meet me in Heaven someday

In sweet ecstasy while the ages roll
Will you meet in Heaven someday

Johnny Cash, 1932-2003

sketches for a story, tentatively titled Can We Enjoy

Once he had the idea shaped and folded into something small and bright, something he could see and feel, he began the difficult task of forgetting. Oh, at the beginning it was easy: lines from books he hadn't read in years and the titles of movies he'd only seen on TBS during rained-out Braves games. The taste of ouzo, which he had had only once, on his post-graduation backpacking trip to Europe. The melodies of all the songs the sloppy cover band played at his prom. These were things he did not need; things he could freely lose. All day he forgot more and more, but a single thought worried him, like a piece of food (The singular taste and texture of barbecued pork from Panda Express: gone. His one-word assessment of that taste and texture ("False."): also gone.) stuck in his teeth: Does it matter if I forget these things?

--Yes, it matters. These small losses are the speedbag, the on-deck-circle donut, the scales; you are practicing. The big forgetting remains. You are not ready.

On one lazy Saturday afternoon, he forgot the entire recorded catalog of Talking Heads, song by song. The French lyrics to "Psycho Killer," which he was never quite clear on anyway, no longer troubled him. He couldn't hear the connection between "I'm Not in Love" and that one Luscious Jackson song whose name he didn't even need to forget--he couldn't hear "I'm Not in Love" at all. Things were going well.

In this manner he prepared himself for the big forgetting. The big forgetting now had shape and mass and volume--it occupied a very real portion of his head. It was glossy and black and round, and as he forgot the make and model of every car he or his family had ever owned, the big forgetting grew, forcing its glossy black roundness against the fragile inside of his skull.

--We are here. You mustn't remember.

On Tuesday he woke with a couplet in his head: “Love me, love my problems / The good times and the rotten.” This was something remembered, he was sure. This was something he forgot, but now remembered.

--Everything must be new. You mustn’t remember. Here we are.

It was a man’s voice, singing, but high, a falsetto. A mannered voice, the voice of an educated man, a bit fey perhaps. There was another line immediately following. It was: "--------------------" And there was another line, a line from a different song: “I made it through the wilderness...”

--Don’t try. You are forgetting the big forgetting, and by that I mean you are not forgetting. You remembered two lines from a song. Forget them. Forget that you forgot them. Don’t forget, this was your choice. Do forget. Do you want this all to be new? Do you want to be free, again, as you used to be, long ago, before all this? This was your idea. I’ll help: that song? It’s not even real. You made it up. That’s right. You’re letting it win. You keep picking at it, because that’s all you’ve ever done. That’s why you’re doing this. Nothing can be new if everything is still here, breathing and wet, in the present. You mustn’t remember. We are here. Here we are. This is all. All is new.

to be continued in a different manner, for a smaller audience

Right. We must talk about this. But not now. I'm tired.

The recording industry is expected to announce as early as next week an amnesty program for people who admit they illegally share music files across the Internet, promising not to sue them in exchange for their admission and pledge to delete the songs off their computers.